Informatica 9 Launch

Though the webinar on Informatica 9 launch is studded with Key Note, Breakouts etc., I could only grab these points from the presentation about the new version.

• Logical Data objects - Something like a source, to which you can apply certain rules (set of mapplets or transformations) and you can deploy them as SQL services or web services so that you can view the data using a Browser. Note that till Informatica 8.x, you could only run transformations by creating a mapping, but in Informatica 9, you don't need a mapping, but a data object would do.
• Informatica Developer tool - The only client tool I could see in the webinar is something with "D" as a task-bar icon, doesn't necessarily mean "Designer" as in 8.x.
• Powerful Search tool to search the entire metadata for a port-name or even for a transformation name.
• With the new Analyst tools, there is extensive flexibility to the Business user to customize the Informatica objects for his needs. This would substantially reduce the Development effort, but considering the effort/cost in training Business Users to customize the developed Informatica objects, I am not sure if it is all a cake-walk.
• There are no two different objects as source or target. You can just import one object and can be used as a Source and also as a target, there by reducing the metadata storage.
  
  Please note that I have not seen the New version yet, all the above is only from the webinar that I have attended at http://www.informatica.com/9